


oh my heart, how can i face you now?

by zipegs



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Enemies to friends (to lovers), Feelings Realization, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scenes, Multi, Pining, Post Carnivale, Pre-Relationship, Reconciliation, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Tenderness, set between eps 6 and 7, this one's soft and slow lads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:47:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21843172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zipegs/pseuds/zipegs
Summary: In the aftermath of Carnivale, James and Francis set their differences aside and start to make amends.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames
Comments: 44
Kudos: 168
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lyrstzha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyrstzha/gifts).



The bitter scent of char coats every inch of him. James can feel it on himself, like a thick, greasy lacquer that smears his skin and clogs his nostrils, clumping like mucus in the back of his throat. He sniffs, trying to dislodge the macabre smell, but only serves to draw it deeper within himself.

His hands are trembling. They have been for some time now, though he has recently lost his ability to hide it. He fumbles with his pencil, gaze fixed on the blackened body lying motionless below him.

At his side, Francis is making his own identifications. James knows the man is likely as absorbed in the task as he, focus spent entirely on the crewman lying unrecognizable before him, and yet cannot help but feel he is being scrutinized. It is an ever-present paranoia around Francis, but James has grown unused to it following the man’s recent absence and resents its current return. He wishes Francis would have left him to it, back when he first urged James to return to _Erebus_ ; his grief is a private, violent thing, and he does not wish for Francis to witness it. Carnivale was _his_ conceit, and he will be the one who lays it to rest.

The sun has nearly set already—naught but thin, watery light still peeks up from below the horizon—and it makes the job difficult. With the men so disfigured, and want of sleep glazing James’s eyes, he finds this half-illumination nearly worse than total darkness, casting sharp shadows that distort and deform. There is something unsettling about it, in the same way the Northern Lights sometimes stir in him a deep-rooted unease with their alien glow.

He sniffs, scrubbing his nose ungracefully on the cuff of his sleeve, and leans back on his haunches. There are three or four more men left—lying side to side amongst the rest like paupers readied for burial in mass graves—and then it will be over. He will be able to look down at their number, at the tally he has written upon his small corner of paper, and see precisely how greatly this folly has cost them. How many men will count this day as their journey’s last.

“James.”

He is too tired to startle. Instead, he swings his gaze to his left; Francis has settled beside him and placed a hand upon his arm. James’s vision undulates slightly. In the background, he cannot stop seeing the red blaze of the tents.

“You’ve done enough. Leave the rest.”

The thought turns something over inside him. He shakes his head. “No. No, I must—I must finish this.”

“There are others who can do it just as well as you,” Francis says. He does not command, but his voice is firm, and James finds himself acquiescing. To tell the truth, he has been slowing these past few hours anyway, movements turned sluggish and ungainly, vision marred by exhaustion and the memory of the inferno.

He nods once, a small, restrained motion, and Francis claps his shoulder. “Mr. Bridgens,” he calls, turning his head to look over his shoulder. “See that the rest of these men are given names.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You can give your report to Captain Fitzjames, once you’re both back aboard _Erebus_.”

Francis stands, the joints in his knees groaning and popping as he does. He reaches a hand down, and after a moment, James takes it, pulling himself to his feet. They make their way silently past the corpses and remnants of the crew, boots biting into the ash-darkened snow. James cannot help but think of the triumph he felt mere hours earlier, leading his men into an oasis of their own making. _Something to keep their minds on_ , Mr. Blanky had said. Well, there is no doubt that this will serve.

They draw to a halt, James following Francis’s lead, and he realizes suddenly that he is about to be left. _Get some sleep, James_ , Francis will say, and then he will set off, traversing the lonely half-mile of ice which lies between them and _Terror_ , and James will undertake the journey toward _Erebus_ alone. The thought collapses inside him, drawing the breath from his lungs. He wishes dearly that Dundy were here beside him, or even Dr. Goodsir, Mr. Blanky. Every part of him rebels at the thought of his imminent isolation, weak as that may make him.

He says nothing, bracing himself for the benediction which will surely follow, but something in Francis’s expression shifts. He pulls his hands behind his back and tilts his head to the side.

“I trust you would not mind terribly were I to accompany you to _Erebus,_ ” he says, and James feels himself slacken with relief. It is not that he desires the captain’s company—all things said, he would very much like to be rid of the man for now—but it far outweighs his own.

“Not at all,” James replies, and they begin the long, quiet journey back.

It is farther to _Erebus_ than James remembers, yet he supposes that fatigue and grief do much to stretch the expanse of space into something interminable. Francis seems to feel it too, for they begin to slow their pace, and neither of them seems to be at all amenable to conversation. That is, of course, no new territory for Terror’s captain. Francis has always been a remarkably somber and close-lipped man, but his silence now feels rather different.

Their grief is so great within them, James thinks, that there is no room left for words.

In the absence of speech, he can hear Francis’s breathing. It’s fast becoming labored, alarmingly so, and James remembers that until tonight, Francis had not so much as been outside the Great Cabin in weeks. He feels a pang of worry, regretting his own selfishness, and eyes Francis as discreetly as possible. His face is ruddy with cold or exertion, and he keeps his focus on the ice ahead of them in a way that suggests great concentration. He does not seem unsteady, but each step appears to require some effort from him beyond what James would expect. 

James frowns.

“Francis,” he begins, trying to find words that will not wound the man’s fragile pride. “Perhaps you ought to head straight for _Terror_.” Francis glances over at him but does not respond, continuing his stubborn journey without so much as a hitch of hesitation. “You—You’re only newly recovered, after all; it would not do to have our captain indisposed again for something so foolish as this.”

“I’m fine, James.” He utters the words as though doing so causes him some strain—they feel pressed thin, like papyrus ground flat between two stones.

“Really, I must protest—”

Francis fixes him with a look, and James feels his resolve crumble. He falls silent, protestations receding as quickly as they have come. He feels somewhat abashed to have expected Francis would accept his counsel, and chastened by the sharpness of his gaze. That, at least, is one thing that has not changed with sobriety. In truth, it is something of a comfort; Francis’s testiness is charted territory, despite how James may resent it. And he cannot deny that a part of him remains glad for the company, no matter its irritability.

When they reach Erebus, the ship is preternaturally quiet; neither laughter nor conversation bounces off its wooden beams. As they descend into its belly, James can hear the creak of hammocks and the sound of muffled sobs. Wet sniffling, quiet reassurances. The noises drip into his stomach like mucus, unsettling and nauseating. He pauses in the hall, looking toward the fo’c’sle as though drawn there by the magnetism of his men’s grief. A part of him wishes he could go in and share his misery amongst peers. But he is a captain, and he will grieve alone.

He turns his back on them and makes his way to the wardroom. “We’ll have to hold a service,” he hears himself say, speaking without turning his head as Francis clods along behind. His voice wavers, and he clears his throat in an attempt to hide it. Purses his lips around the shape of his pain. “Give the men a proper eulogy.”

Francis grunts.

James supposes it is as much an agreement as any.

The wardroom is cold, any vestiges of heat long since dissipated. It is just as well—he is not certain he could bear warmth now. Still, he does light several of the lamps so that the corners of the room do not appear quite as pointed and grey.

It is a scene alarmingly akin to the aftermath of Sir John’s passing. The memory strikes James like a blow, and he has to pause, steadying himself on the back of a chair as he tucks his chin toward his chest and attempts to breathe past the burning in his throat. _So many men_ , he thinks dumbly. _We have lost so many men._

He imagines returning to England with half their force, having to stand in front of the Admiralty and declare his own incompetence. Penning letters and apologies to the families of those he has condemned. The thoughts leave him weak in the knees, and he tightens his grip on the wood beneath his hand, knuckles whitening with the strain of it.

Francis comes up behind him, hesitant at first, his footfalls pausing and then taking up again one or two at a time. James remembers how they had all of them sat silent after Sir John, each man an island unto himself, unable and unwilling to share their loss amongst themselves.

But there comes now the weight of a hand on his shoulder, the gentle brush of a body beside his own.

“Let me help you get out of this,” Francis says, reaching for the clasp of James’s crimson cape. And all at once, it is too much. James can feel the bodies around him, packed like sardines in a tin, pressing and pressing and finding no escape.

He flinches, and tries to hide the motion by brushing Francis’s hand away, looking off to the windows at the edge of the room.

“Thank you, I can manage the rest myself.”

Francis pauses, hand still hovering in the air. After a moment, he lowers it. Clasps both his hands behind his back.

“You’re welcome to use the Great Cabin,” James tells him, “if the journey back to _Terror_ proves too daunting. I’m certain Mr. Hoar can scrounge something up for you to change into for the night, should you so desire.”

But as he had expected, Francis shakes his head. “Thank you; no.”

James nods. “Very well. I’ll…send word, once Bridgens has given his report.”

Francis dips his head in acknowledgement, and following a moment’s hesitation, retreats to the door. When he has nearly reached it, he pauses again and turns to look over his shoulder. “Try to get some rest, James.”

But James does not reply, already swept away by the current of his thoughts.

\---

“We are going through the salt meats quicker than expected, but I have spoken with Mr. Diggle and Mr. Wall. They assure me that with the men now at three-fifths rations, they should be able to stretch our current inventory until at least half a month before our departure.” Irving looks between Francis and James as he speaks, gaze flitting from one to the other as though he is not entirely sure where it ought to settle.

James nods, granting Irving the briefest of smiles, but it is Francis who responds.

“Thank you, Lieutenant Irving. Lieutenant Hodgson.”

“Yes, sir?” Hodgson straightens, though his posture required no rectification.

“How do we stand with trunks, crates, and the like?”

“We’re gathering all we can, sir,” he responds, lacing his hands in his lap. “I’ve seen to it that the men repurpose whatever vessels we can spare. Nonessential items have been relocated wherever they are most out of the way.”

“Very good.”

This is not the first meeting they have held since Francis’s return, but James finds himself surprised yet again at how well the man commands it. He is unused to this version of Francis, whose eyes are sharp and discerning rather than glazed with drink. Who arrives on time and nearly amiable, and offers insight with few, if any, barbs. It is refreshing, and yet there is a part of him that cannot help but feel sour over it. James has grown accustomed to leading these meetings; it had felt insurmountable at first, and then merely tedious. But he finds now that he has developed a taste for it—for a command of his own—and some small, vain part of him is loathe to lose it.

“Well, it, er… It seems more of the men are…coming down with it, sir.” Goodsir’s lips quirk up in a nervous smile.

James chides himself for losing track of their conversation. He focuses on the surgeon, who is now fiddling with his hands.

“It’s…the early stages, for most,” Goodsir continues. “But the numbers are concerning. And we currently have no means of counteracting it. I fear that by the time we set out, it will have begun to progress.”

“How many would you say are showing signs of it?” Francis asks. His brow is knit with worry.

James feels a ripple of unease. _Scurvy_. To even think the word feels an invocation, as though he is calling the devil forth from whatever dark places upon this ship it currently inhabits. He ought to come forward himself, he knows, for he is among those cradled in its fatal palms. But he has not been able to bring himself to visit Goodsir; he does not want news of his weakness to spread, or for his men to perceive the frailty which looms over him. Besides, there is nothing to be done. It is better, he tells himself, that they do not know.

“I—I would have to check my books,” Goodsir says. “But I would estimate…a fifth? A quarter? And that is, of course, not counting the men who have neglected to come forward.”

Francis is silent for a moment. He is, no doubt, imagining how the affliction will spread and fester. James thinks of Thomas Blanky, and his tale of Fury Beach. Francis was right; they ought to have set out sooner. That is one more decision James must bear the weight of.

“Encourage them to do so,” he says finally, and James can hear the meeting drawing to a close. “I’d like as close a tally as you can manage.”

Goodsir nods jerkily, and the other officers begin to shift in their seats as they, too, sense the assembly drawing its way to a natural conclusion.

“That will be all for today, gentlemen. Thank you for your diligence; I trust I can continue to rely on it, as we draw nearer the date of our departure. We will need every man at his best, until then.”

Francis raps his knuckles on the table, and the men begin to rise. James is last among them, pushing himself up from his chair only once the majority have already made their way to the door.

“Captain Fitzjames. If you would join me in the Great Cabin, for a moment.”

He nods his agreement, casting a look to Le Vesconte, who is lingering in the doorway. They lock eyes—Dundy holds his gaze for a moment, expression inscrutable. After one fleeting glance at the captain, he steps out and away to some other part of the ship. James can hear his footfalls as they trail away—like a lifeline being dragged just out of reach. It is, perhaps, uncharitable of him to think, but he has not truly been alone with the Captain in some time, and has felt on uncertain footing as of late. This Francis is not who James thought him to be—he is markedly at odds with the image of him James had crafted over the last few years. He’d come to think of Francis as cold and withdrawn, had resented his ever-present scowl and propensity toward disdain, but James sees none of that now. This Francis is capable and nearly warm, invested in the well-being of his crew and officers. It sets James off-balance. Makes him falter. Whatever judgments he had once made about Francis have proven as perilous and untrustworthy as the ice.

James follows Francis into the Great Cabin, hovering just inside the doorway. His hesitancy is short-lived, however, as it is interrupted by a blur of black fur.

“Neptune!” Francis chides, but the hound ignores him, jumping up excitedly to rest his front paws upon James’s thighs and startling a laugh out of him. James crouches down without pause, scratching unrestrainedly behind the dog’s ears. Neptune’s breath is hot and rank, but a shock of joy thrills through James at the animal’s attention.

“Hello, Neptune,” he coos, unable to temper the smile which forms on his lips. “Hello, old boy. Not causing poor Francis any trouble, now, are you?”

“He certainly is. Immense quantities of it.”

James glances up to find Francis watching them with amusement, one eyebrow cocked. “Acts like he owns this sodding ship, don’t you, you mangy mutt?”

Neptune barks, and James chuckles again, bringing his hands down to rub beneath his chin. “Oh, don’t listen to him, Neptune. He won’t admit it, but he is quite fond of you. You wouldn’t be allowed within a mile of the Great Cabin were that not so.”

Francis shakes his head, but he doesn’t refute it. “Go on and take him to _Erebus_ , why don’t you? After all, it seems I am no longer his favorite. He’s taken quite a liking to you; I don’t recall him responding this enthusiastically to anyone other than Jopson since we’ve set out from Greenhithe. Well—Blanky, perhaps, but I’m not convinced he hasn’t been purchasing the creature’s favor with his own rations.”

“The feeling is mutual,” James tells Neptune seriously. In response, the dog’s tongue lolls agreeably over his canines and out the side of his mouth, dripping drool onto the dark wooden floor.

Silence swoops down over the room. It is a pleasant sort, thick and warm like honey fresh from the comb, punctuated only by the wet sound of Neptune’s panting and the dull thump of his tail against the floorboards. James looks up at Francis, shaking his hair out of his face as he does so.

“How is morale?” Francis asks, his mirth receding into something gentler. “On _Erebus._ ”

James considers. “As can be expected,” he says, granting Neptune a few last pats before bringing himself to stand. “The men are far from jovial, though they have been adjusting well.” He rests a hand on the table and leans upon it. The other comes up to fiddle with the buttons on his waistcoat. “They have certainly noticed the reduction to their rations. I believe they understand the necessity, though knowledge doesn’t make the portions any larger.”

Francis hums, looking at some point off James’s shoulder.

“They are likely still feeling the grief of the darker months. And of…of Carnivale, as well,” James adds, setting his jaw. He clears his throat. “I don’t believe the scurvy is helping things, either. The men know they’re likely to come down with it soon.”

“It’ll only be worse, once we set out.”

James ducks his head.

“We must endeavour to keep their spirits up,” Francis continues. James hears him crossing toward the stern, looking out the windows that sit therein. “However we can. Remind them that their homes are closer now than they ever have been before. The journey will be grueling, but it will be worth it, in the end.”

He begins to nod before Francis has even turned to gauge his reaction and grants him a small, taut smile when he does so, which Francis returns.

James departs shortly, but Francis’s words swirl in his mind long after he has made his way to _Erebus._ He is hearkened back to a frigid morning several years ago, on which he had first gazed out at this impenetrable expanse of white. _Your demeanor should be all cheer, gentlemen_ , Sir John had said then. _An adventure of a lifetime. That’s what you tell the men._ For all his faults, morale had been a field in which Sir John was unmatched; he had drawn loyalty and hope around him as easily as a cloak. It was something James had always admired.

Now, he cannot help but think how like him Francis has begun to sound.

\---

They have taken to holing themselves up in the Great Cabin. Generally, it is upon _Terror_ that they find their little corner of solitude; _Erebus’s_ Great Cabin is still littered with the remnants of Goodsir and Stanley’s sickbay augmentation, though it is not oft used, as insufficient staffing remains to manage both locations. James is not certain of his feelings on the matter; on the one hand, he quite likes having a space apart from the crew and officers. Yet it is odd, still, to be aboard _Terror_ and to not feel he has ventured behind enemy lines.

Tonight, there is not much to see to. There is a great deal that cannot truly be accounted for; though there are inventories to complete and plans to draw and preparations to carry out, they will never be more ready than they are now. Every day that passes is another day closer to scurvy’s snapping jaws, another step farther from the surety of salvation.

James and Francis have put a stopper in their pretending for the night. They have set down their pens and papers and sat down with naught but their water glasses at the Great Cabin’s table, the rope which holds it steady creaking and groaning along with the ice.

There is silence, for a while. For as comforting as he has always found idle chatter, James doesn’t quite know what to say to Francis, now that they tread such unsteady ground. Their alliance is newly-wrought and fragile, and he is loathe to strain it with ill-chosen speech. Nor does James expect Francis to take up the burden of conversation, as he has always been quite content to go without. It is thus a surprise to him when the man ruptures the quiet unprompted.

“I believe I owe you an apology, James.” Francis does not meet his eyes. He looks resolutely down at the glass in his hand, watching the water inside swirl like an eddy as he rolls it between his fingers. It is only after speaking that he glances up, as though he cannot bear to do both at once. Even then, he barely manages to look at James, peering up from beneath the barrier of his brow, mouth twisted with some emotion James cannot place. Contrition, perhaps, but he is as of yet unused to its appearance on Francis’s visage, and it serves only to unsettle him. “I have been unfair to you, these past few years.”

A smile tightens on James’s lips. He recalls the cool weight of Francis’s gaze and the way he had bowed beneath it. The derision in it, and the judgment. The feel of his fist. The strength of his arm. He had so craved Francis’s approval back in those early days, in spite of his ill humor and thinly veiled barbs, but it did not take long for the man’s reticence to harden James’s feelings toward him into those of spite. He can still feel the ghost of Francis’s knuckles upon his cheekbone, the indignation and humiliation which had burned like a brand within his breast just after. He hopes his thoughts do not show on his face, yet he supposes the length of time which passes before he responds proclaims whatever his expression does not.

“Fret not, Francis,” he says, though the words feel wilted and soft upon his tongue. “There isn’t a one among us who can say he is free from blame.” 

“You may be right,” Francis says, dropping his gaze once more. “Yet I fear I bear more of it than most.”

James cannot refute his statement; he harbors no inclination to lie to Francis. The truth of Francis’s failures is beyond such things, anyway—its formless mass has long since expanded into every frozen, cockeyed corner of this ship.

He settles for watching Francis, unabashedly studying the dip of his head, the play of his knuckles on the table, the slight purse of his lips. Francis lifts his glass to his lips and drinks, tilting his head back as he swallows, and James watches the water work its way down his throat. He still feels drawn to the motion, a deep-rooted need to track each mouthful, despite knowing the liquid Francis now consumes will have no bearing on his sensibilities.

 _Does one not bring one’s habits to Terror?_ The remark floats to the surface of his mind like flotsam. It had been incoherent to him at the time, merely a drunken man’s ramblings, but takes on a rather eloquent meaning now. He still knows not how Francis had intended it, but sitting here, watching Francis drink down water while some part of James still envisions it whiskey, he finds it rather poignant.

“It doesn’t matter now,” he says. The words are as much a surprise to him as they are to Francis, who glances up at him, expression unreadable. James clears his throat. “What’s past is past. You mustn’t dwell on it, Francis. All your attention must be on the present—on the future—if we are to make it out of this alive. You said it yourself: this place wants us dead. I only wish I had discerned the truth of it sooner.”

The sincerity of his statement settles within him. He does not forgive Francis, not entirely—James’s pride is still very much a part of him, and it is not sturdy enough to withstand such relentless whittling as Francis Crozier has given it—but he has come to appreciate the man. To see the captain—the person—he might be, if only he would seize the chance. James has seen glimmers of that man in the time since Carnivale, poking out his feelers like a butterfly cracking open its chrysalis. He saw it even on the very night of the tragedy, witnessed the men, just before the festival fell to chaos and discord and fury, watching Francis with quiet attention. Saw Francis’s words pierce their hearts with aim as sure and true as any speech the late Sir John had ever wielded. They do not love him—not yet—for he has not earned it. But James is starting to believe they will, in time.

He wonders what Sir John would think, were he still among the living. The recollection of his absence smarts terribly, as it always does—for all his failings, Sir John had been a cornerstone of the expedition and a remarkable man. James does not think he will ever truly overcome the loss. He had not expected to be forced into such large shoes, and wonders how much of their fate might have been avoided had _Erebus_ and _Terror_ seen more competent leadership. They were a mismatched trio, he and Francis and Sir John, each suffering his own failings, each faced with his own hurdles, but James can see now how they might have fit together. How they might have filled those holes in each other, one man’s strength caulking another’s failure, were they not too headstrong and self-concerned to consider it. Would Sir John see Francis as capable now? Not that he had ever admitted to Francis’s failings; for as much as James knew he and Francis had clashed, Sir John had always stood by his estimation of the man. At the time, James had not understood it; he had seen Francis as weak and petulant, the sort of man who might stir a crew to mutiny without much effort.

He does not see him that way now. James wishes he could tell Sir John that, though he knows he never will.

When he rouses himself from his thoughts, he finds Francis watching him. As before, he is rather unreadable, but James believes there is something akin to fondness in the small quirk of his lips. He huffs a breath out through his nose and rubs at his left eye, which has taken up its newly regular stinging. “Forgive me. I seem to have fallen into a brown study.” He forces a smile, though it feels small and tight across his face. When he drops his hand, his eye pains him all the more. It is, he thinks, quite fitting.

He struggles for a moment, trying to pick up the thread of their prior conversation. Exhaustion seeps into his bones more quickly now, filling in the places where clarity and concentration were previously wont to reside. James fears it is related to the blood peppering his hairline—the most evident among his signs of scurvy—and thus intends to keep the new affliction silent. It is not so bad yet. A nuisance, nothing more. But it _is_ an annoyance, and he feels his skin prickling with a mixture of irritation and fatigue.

When Francis speaks, his voice is gentle.

“It’s all right, James,” he says.

The warmth in his tone causes James to wonder vaguely how much Francis has gleaned from the silence. Whether he has carved a peephole into James’s thoughts and addresses something that he has witnessed there. There comes a warm pressure upon his wrist, and when James looks down he sees that Francis has covered it with the palm of his hand. He is looking at James, too, his blue eyes intent and kinder than James has ever recalled them.

Francis’s attention pools in James’s stomach—the warmth of being seen. James is unused to it, especially from him, and he breaks their eye contact not long after, staring sightlessly down at the grain of the wood in the table. He does not, however, pull his hand away. It remains beneath Francis’s, like an anchor in the depths.

James sometimes wonders whether he has the strength to endure what awaits them. He has always known Arctic exploration to be perilous, but that peril absconded well in theoretics; when the only horrors he must face lay on the yellowed pages of some memoir or other, they shrank themselves into something palatable. Something surmountable. Out here, they take on a new life entirely. It seems Francis was the only one among them to attribute to this place its proper weight, and James has begun to think he will be the only one to endure it.

James has faced self-doubt before, but his persona has always swollen around it, like some soft, bloated shell. In the past few weeks, that shell has been quite lacking, and he finds he no longer has the stomach or the wherewithal to repair it. He only hopes it is not quite so obvious to those around him, and especially not to Francis. He does, after all, quite highly value the man’s judgment, especially now that he has begun to see him in this new light.

“Christ,” he says, attempting to turn to bloviation as a way to smooth out the choppy waves of their conversation. Only he finds he lands somewhat short of the mark, and what spills out is perhaps more self-deprecating and bleak than he had intended. “What a sorry pair we make.”

Francis chuckles, though it is a dry sound. The brittleness of humor stretched too thin, like a drum whose hide has been dried past its prime. “In that, at least, we are well-matched.” He pauses, looking wryly down at the glass in his hands. “Well. Some more than others, I suppose.”

“Yes, but you’ve seen your weakness through,” James cuts in, speaking before the last of Francis’s sentence has dissipated. His conviction burns like fire through him, and with it comes the sickening heat of self-reflection. His own weakness, he knows, is something he will need to wrestle with, before the end. “What you did was admirable; any man who does not see it so is a fool.”

There is a moment of consideration. James is tense with anticipation, though he knows not entirely why. Francis, conversely, seems somewhat lax. Loosened. It is exhaustion, perhaps. Or acceptance.

“It should not have gone so far,” he says, his words coming slow and deliberate, like the first few flakes of snow.

“That doesn't matter.” James feels himself riling, and does not attempt to temper the passion infusing his words. Let Francis see his conviction; it is, after all, on his behalf. “I will not deny that your conduct has been… quite inappropriate, and not befitting a man of your rank.”

Francis wilts, and James hurries to continue.

“But! But—” He chews lightly on the inside of his mouth. “It is… your recovery, I think, which defines you. Your ability to see the error of your ways and seek to correct it, even at great personal cost. You beat it, Francis. That’s what the men will remember. What _I_ will remember.” James shrugs, beginning to sweat under the weight of his vehemence, which thickens the air like humidity. “Not that you won’t have hell to pay for it, of course. But no man can be judged merely by his shortcomings; Lord knows not a single one of us would pass muster.”

“You judge me too kindly,” Francis responds. “It is more than I deserve.”

In some ways, Jame supposes he is right. He isn’t sure where his sudden appreciation and affection for Francis come from—at the worst, he figures it could be a desire for camaraderie. He has grown so _tired_ of being alone. Of being bitter, and resentful. But that is not the whole truth of it. The past few weeks have shown him Francis as a leader, as an inspiration, as a dedicated member of this crew. James has even come to appreciate his gruffness, his occasional vulgarity and dry sense of humour.

Francis is changed, since Carnivale. But so, too, is James.

“Well, perhaps you are not the only one who must come to terms with his misjudgments,” James says.

Francis’s smile comes slow, warm and promising and radiant as the first sunrise of the year, and James cannot help but match it in kind.


	2. Chapter 2

_Erebus’s_ wardroom is quiet.

It usually is, nowadays. It’s meant for a full company of officers, and with only two seated around its table, James can’t help but think it feels somewhat lacking. It has been a long time since it has felt full—the losses of Graham and James and Sir John came so quickly, one upon the other’s back, that there had not been time to adjust. Their company did not dwindle so much as extinguish, and James is still not quite accustomed to the emptiness.

He and Dundy have taken to sitting catty-corner. James generally does his best not to look too hard at the empty chairs which sit like gravestones around the remainder of the table, and he continues that habit now, focusing his gaze down on the meagre serving of salt meats laid like a fine cut of beef upon the elegant blue-and-white china plate before him. He picks up his fork and knife and begins the taxing ordeal of sawing it into bits small enough to chew without breaking his jaw.

When he manages to pry a little chunk off the corner, James chases it down with a sip of tea. It’s more a tease than anything, having been brewed with far fewer leaves than any respectable Englishman would allow, and being without sugar or lemon to lend it any sort of improvement, but it’s warm. He sometimes wonders what he will think of proper tea, when they are back _in terra cognita_. Whether he’ll swoon over the taste or find it unpalatable, having known only this swill for years.

“Can I get you anything, gentlemen? More tea?”

Bridgens stands several paces away, bearing a wooden tray in his hands. Dundy shakes his head, and James waves him off. “No, thank you, Mr. Bridgens, that will be all for now.” 

The steward nods and takes his leave, and it is only once he slides the door closed behind him that Le Vesconte speaks.

“I’ve noticed that you and Francis appear to have sorted out your…disagreements,” he says, fixing James with a _look_ that reeks of trouble. “Actually, you’ve really seemed quite _chummy_ with him, as of late.” Dundy goes on poking at his ration of meat with his fork, quite obviously pushing it around on his plate for want of something to do. Some patina of innocence behind which he might hide.

James is, of course, instantly on alert. He folds his arms across his chest and leans back in his chair, eyes narrowing. “What, exactly, do you mean by that?”

“Whatever you’d like me to mean,” Le Vesconte replies with a forcibly casual shrug. “I’ve only noticed that, compared to how you used to harp on how the man was unfit for command, utterly depressing, irascible, infuriating, _et cetera_ , your recent silence on the matter seems akin to infatuation. You barely gripe about him, and if you do speak, it’s generally benign.”

Dundy is a heathen for gossip, near as desperate for it as James can be. He thinks of all the nights they’d huddled close aboard the _Clio_ and traded stories or opinions about various crew members, in great detail and at great length. He also knows that Dundy is far from fond of Captain Crozier—he is loyal to him, for he must be. But like James, he has had his doubts from the very start. They were likely only bolstered by James’s own dislike of the man, which he did (quite unprofessionally) share with Henry. While rank is never negligible, it has always been more lax between them, professional barriers eroded by the long, intimate friendship they shared.

“He’s a different man, Dundy,” he says simply, because isn’t that the truth of it? At its very centre, isn’t that it?

“I’m not arguing that.” Le Vesconte gestures vaguely with his silverware. “Ever since he bled himself dry he’s changed, I’ll grant him that.”

James watches him for a moment, trying to glean some meaning where Dundy offers none, but finds himself at a loss. “I confess I’m not entirely certain what you’re getting at.”

“Your change of heart appears to have happened rather suddenly, is all.”

James shoots him a look, irritation needling at his breast. “I’ve no patience for back answers, even from you.”

Le Vesconte raises his eyebrows, but he drops his gaze to his plate with something akin to contrition. There is a vestige of a pensive smile lingering upon his lips—James does not doubt he is even now forming some scheme to get to the bottom of whatever matter so consumes him.

“Sponge it out,” Dundy says finally, going back to cutting his meat. “I meant no disrespect.”

They continue their breakfast, tension lapsing into silence. The only sounds are the clink of silverware against china and the rattle of teacups in their saucers. It sets James’s teeth on edge. He cannot shake the feeling that Dundy was seeking some confession from him, some secret about which they might confer or commiserate. But James he has none to share, and can’t help but feel there’s something he has missed.

\---

“Do you have plans?” James asks one evening, apropos of nothing. “For when we get back to England.”

It’s wishful thinking, perhaps—he is not at all convinced that they _will_ set foot upon English soil again, but to think otherwise would open the door for a slew of other, darker ruminations for which James is entirely unprepared. Perhaps it is foolish of him; he does not care. “I daresay you’ll be knighted for this, at the very least.”

Francis’s pen slows its scratching, and he looks up at James for an instant before returning his attention to the parchment before him. “Not particularly.” He leans back in his chair, brow knitting with thought, and is silent for a long moment. “There were a great many things I had thought to do,” he says finally. “Marriage, a knighthood. A command of my own.” He smiles somewhat bitterly, voice brittle with self-deprecation. “I had not expected to come into one on this selfsame voyage.”

No, James thinks. That sentiment, at least, is familiar. He, too, had sought command—had yearned to prove himself, to rise above his station and emerge victorious and beloved. The reality of the matter had rolled in like a hurricane and swept him off his feet—there was nothing he wanted less, when faced with its actuality. But then there are a great many things on this voyage which he had not expected to come into, though come into them they did. Like a school of fish, this expedition has swum its blundering way into a net, only catching sight of its demise once no time remained for its avoidance.

“And you, James?” Francis’s voice is light, intentionally so—though James senses a crispness to it that belies his inner turmoil. “Have you planned sufficiently for our triumphant return?” There is more hostility in his tone than James has come to expect; it sets him off balance, as though someone has lopped off a leg of his chair and left him foundering. His expression slackens with surprise, and he cannot formulate a response.

“I’m certain you’ll have at least a few new stories stuffed and crimped for the moment we arrive. Lord knows there’s enough fodder here for a memoir or two.”

James begins to flush, heat creeping up the back of his neck, blood lying heavy in the apples of his cheeks. He hearkens back to the earlier nights of the voyage—sitting around the table with the other officers, regaling them with anecdotes proving his bravery and mettle. He’d captivated them all, save Francis. James hadn’t known quite how much the man had resented his tales.

Truth be told, he hasn’t given much— _any_ —thought to what stories he might spin upon their return. It is, he will admit, rather odd. He has always had a penchant for weaving his weaknesses into his strengths, folding the truth of his inadequacy beneath layers of down, whipping his shortcomings into something stiff and palatable. But he has not considered how he might recount these particular tales. He thinks on it now—tries to find a way to turn the blackened, charred bodies of his friends into something triumphant. To change the Creature into something fearsome and majestic, to paint himself a hero for his short time manning the cannon with Lieutenant Hodgson and the others.

But for the first time, nothing comes to him.

Instead, he only feels sick.

“I—” He tries to formulate some comeback, to brush Francis’s words off as easily as snow from the shoulder of his greatcoat. But it is not so simple. They have dug their claws into him, and he is left rankled and hurting. “I’m not—”

Francis sighs. He rubs at his temple with one hand. “I’m sorry, James, that was not kind.”

James does not speak. He gathers the fragments of his pride and tries to fit them together with shaking hands, like a child who has watched a parent dash their favorite toy to pieces upon the cobblestones. He opens his mouth dumbly, but it is Francis, again, who picks up the frayed ends of the conversation.

“No, please. I suppose it is a great imposition to ask you to forget I said anything.” His lips curl into a smile, though there is no mirth in it. “It seems I must beg your indulgence once more, though I have no right to ask it of you. You have proven yourself both a capable captain and an honest man, and it is not fair of me to diminish you with my own preconceived notions.”

James is unsettled; he feels at once exposed and indignant, and yet there is some truth to Francis’s words. There might have been a time when the only thing propelling him through a tragedy of this sort would have been the promise of a tale, once all was said and done. The prospect of a legacy, and a way to spin these horrors into entertainment. Proof of his pluck. He would have laid in his berth and contemplated just how he might recount these last few years to the men back home, might have sat at his desk and put it down in verse.

It is strange, now, to look back on the past few months—past _year_ , perhaps—and have no such fantasies to fall back on. James has had to dig up something more substantial from inside himself. He has looked to his crew and his friends for strength, rather than the promise of his own inflated image. The thought of coming out of all of this death to face praise and adoration unnerves him more than it thrills him.

“The most cutting criticism is that which has its roots in truth, hm?” He raises an eyebrow, hoping wit might mask the way his wounds still smart. But Francis is a perceptive man; that has always been something James both respected and resented in him, for he does not particularly like being found out. “But, er.” He gnaws on the inside of his lip. Looks down at his fingers, which lay upon the edge of the table. “I find I simply haven’t had the appetite for such fabrications, as of late.”

Francis is quiet, and James does not do him the service of looking up. He can feel him watching, gaze heavy and assessing. Those eyes, he thinks, carry with them always the weight of a spyglass; there is no inch of him left unknown beneath their gaze.

“I know,” Francis says finally. “I know that, James.”

 _Then by God, man,_ he thinks, _why must you belabor it?_

But James does not speak. He purses his lips and tucks his chin in toward his chest, rapping his fingertips lightly against the table.

“Right.” He does not so much as shift in his seat. “I… I’m likely wanted aboard _Erebus_.” It’s not an elegant excuse, though he is not certain Francis currently deserves one. Yet he cannot seem to unglue himself from his chair. Some nameless emotion keeps him shackled here, as though in a dream.

“Of course.”

There is no judgment in Francis’s voice—it is gentle and, if anything, resigned. Salted with guilt.

James stays where he sits, and Francis does not call him on it.

He can hear the soft tick of his pocket watch, tucked into his waistcoat.

 _Do you know_ , he wants to say, _when I was in Chinkiang, I was not thinking of roast pork. Any image of Caesar crossing the Rubicon fell clean from my head once I heard the first of our men’s screams._

When he looks up, Francis is watching him, brow wrinkled with the intensity of his gaze.

“Do you think we’ll make it?” James asks. His voice snags over the last few words, ripping through them jagged and unsteady, like a hook torn viciously from a fish’s lip. He swallows around the shape of his fear. Thinks of the stinging in his eye, the weakness which has already begun to steep within his limbs.

Francis opens his mouth, and James raises a hand, looking away. “Don’t—Don’t answer that, please. I’m not certain what possessed me to even ask.”

Francis says nothing, and James rubs at the bridge of his nose. He has found it so inordinately difficult as of late to continue on as he has, brandishing his persona for all it is worth. Even with Dundy, he has frequently found himself floundering. It is, he believes, partially to do with the scurvy—as he has already noticed, it has scooped great chunks of capacity from his mind like spoonfuls of ice cream, leaving him foggy and unable to focus. But some of it, perhaps, is simply exhaustion. He has seen so much, has suffered so much—they all have. And his own vanity feels more like foolishness now than it ever has.

“We all have our doubts,” Francis says finally. He speaks slowly, stepping through his words with great care. “It is a long journey, after all. No one would fault you, should you harbour any particular misgivings.”

James cannot bring himself to look at Francis. He attempts to compel himself to stand up and make for _Erebus,_ as he had intended to do several minutes ago.

“If we do return to England,” he says, studying the gleaming buttons on Francis’s coat, “I can’t imagine it’ll still be the same as when we left it. I feel as though a lifetime has passed, out here in this wasteland. Like time has gone and left us behind.”

Francis hums. “Time passes differently, on the ice,” he says simply.

James thinks of Francis’s journeys with Ross and Parry—he wonders whether Francis has felt this before. This displacement. This unsteadiness. He hopes so, for then it will not be a weakness in him alone.

“This kind of a place… it changes you. England will still be there when we get back, just the same as we left it.” James can feel the weight of Francis’s gaze, can nearly taste the sincerity with which he speaks. “But you may find you see it…differently, after all this.”

“That I do not doubt.” He wonders how much further his perspective will change, once they step into the nothingness which lies beyond the confines of these two ships. Whether that change will be for the better or the worse. Again he thinks of Fury Beach, and resolution rises like a tide inside him. He will not be as Sir John Ross, cannot stand the thought of sinking so low. 

He will have Francis, though, to temper him, and the man is clearly not afraid to speak his mind.

“James.”

He looks up, brows raised in question, to find Francis watching him, expression laden with guilt. “I _am_ sorry. You are not that man anymore, and I know it. It was cruel of me to speak that way.” He hits the table lightly with his fist. “You must know by now that I am an irascible old fool,” he continues, “and these last several weeks have been long and difficult, as no doubt you have felt. It is no excuse, I’m aware, but…” 

James shakes his head. He can still feel the sharpness of Francis’s jab and expects he will for a long time henceforth, but now is not the time for grudges. “Peace, Francis. Consider it forgiven.”

They have come full circle, it seems, circling ‘round conversation like water in a drain. It is as natural a conclusion as any, and before he gives himself the chance to bare any more of his faults, James rises. He does so slowly, coaxing mobility back into his cold-stiffened bones. “And now,” he says, pulling his waistcoat down with a prim, practiced move, “as I had intended before, I will take my leave.”

Francis nods, and tries for a smile. It is close-lipped and small, and somewhat bittersweet, but James thinks it very much in line with the feel of things, out here. Fitting.

“Sleep well, Francis,” he says, and after a moment’s further hesitation, crosses out of the Great Cabin in search of _Erebus_.

\---

In the weeks which follow, James feels his rapport with Francis grow hearty and dependable, losing the last of its tenderness as a wound scabs over with time. Whatever awkwardness or misgivings had lingered in them since Carnivale have melted away like the thaw of which they so often dream. They have settled into a sort of companionship, have ceased their prodding at each other’s weaknesses. The last of James’s reservations have been proved unfounded; he finds in Francis an admirable man, one worthy of command and capable of leading them to salvation. In fact, he would like to think they’ve crossed over into friendship. Or something like it, at least.

At the very least, things are not difficult between them. Conversation that once felt akin to sticking his neck out upon a chopping block now flows easy and unrestrained. They can joke with each other, and Francis has even begun to encourage James’s storytelling, goading his reminiscences rather than bemoaning them. He started to share some of his own accounts as well, regaling James with tales of his earlier days in the service, and his expeditions with Parry and Ross.

It becomes a kind of ritual between them. James can no longer recall how exactly it had begun, but he expects it took shape naturally, born out of a need to fortify themselves with recollections of merrier times. That is not to say they do not become melancholy—they both suffer bouts of it on occasion, and James has even come to appreciate Francis’s occasional inclination toward the morose. But they seek to temper their indulgence, and do not yield to melancholia as regularly as affability.

Tonight, they settle somehow upon the topic of Dundy and the _HMS Clio_ , which, unsurprisingly, leads quite naturally into accounts of Cleopatra.

“She was the most majestic being I’d ever seen,” James says. He is unable to shake the thrill that still coils in his belly upon receipt of Francis’s full attention. “This great, exotic, stunning beast. The pattern of her fur alone proved more breathtaking than any artist could have managed. I swear, no likeness you’ve ever seen can do the creatures justice. She seemed bathed in gold, brown spots speckling her coat like gemstones.”

Francis cocks an eyebrow, and James compels himself to cease waxing poetic and get to the point.

“At any rate, I can hardly believe we managed to get the damn thing aboard. She was the crown jewel of our expedition, by and by. Dundy and I were so proud of ourselves; we’d a bit of a predisposition toward extravagance, back then.”

“Only then?” Francis quips, and James swats at him.

“Alright, alright, you insufferable man. But I’ll have you know there’s nothing amiss with enjoying a bit of extravagance, now and then. We aren’t all hardy old Irish folk, you see.”

“Of course,” Francis says with an air of humour, and James presses on.

“Well, it was all fine and dandy until the great beast decided to take a swipe at me. Claws sharp and long as bayonets, she had. Cut through my skin like butter, and I’ve still got the goddamned scars to show for it. Like three great tally marks, dragged across my chest.” He demonstrates, dragging a clawed hand down across his chest as Cleopatra had. “The thing surely would have bit my throat out, had Dundy and the others not beat it off me.”

“I suppose that came as a great surprise to you. A wild animal, acting in accordance with its nature.” Francis is grinning. It is humour at James’s expense, of course, but there is no animosity behind it, and James finds that he doesn’t much mind.

“Well, I suppose I had provoked it,” he muses. “It’d been alarming one of our crew, you see, so I sought to distract it by, erm. Pulling on its tail.”

 _That_ coaxes a chuckle from Francis. The sound spills forth warm and low, like molasses, and James finds himself laughing too, chest lightened so much that he fears he might float away.

“Of course, I’d known it could prove dangerous,” he adds once their laughter begins to die down, and shakes his rather lank hair from his eyes. “But I liked to think I could handle it—Captain James Fitzjames, the cheetah tamer. And I suppose on some level I knew what a marvelous story it would prove to be, should the thing become agitated. Only I hadn’t anticipated the full extent of its wrath.”

“You were a great bloody fool.”

“I can’t argue with that. Although I was a jolly one, and well-liked at that.”

“Clearly.”

They let the flames of the story give way to embers. All the while, James cannot help the pride that prowls within his chest at having attracted Francis’s interest, at having aroused his gaiety. Ritual this may be, but the joy of it has not yet lost its lustre. _You see_ , he thinks, as he does every time he arouses Francis’s smile, _you’re not quite as immune to my storytelling as you would like me to believe_. In fairness, the method of his story-weaving has transformed somewhat from that which he had grown accustomed to employing. Nowadays, James neglects to thread his sagas with quite as much lavishness as has been his custom. Refrains from twisting quite as many truths as he was once wont to do. It had been an awkward adjustment, at first, but now that he’s grown accustomed to the fit of such a style, he will admit that there is an element of freedom in the honesty of it.

“What happened to it?” Francis asks, rousing James from his introspection.

“Got rid of it, of course,” he replies wryly. “We could hardly keep such a creature on board, once she had proved her perilous nature.”

Francis snorts with humour, shaking his head. “Of course.”

Another pause. Another moment of reflection. For a short while, James loses himself in the past, allowing himself to dip his toes into memories of a lighter—warmer—time.

And then Francis speaks again.

“You know, I used to be quite a handful myself.”

James hardly knows what to say; he lets out a great, startled laugh, more out of reflex than anything. “Now _that_ I do not quite believe.”

Francis smiles so wide that the gap shows between his teeth. “It’s true.”

“No, I don’t think so. You? Miserable old thing that you are? Although if you mean to say you proved a handful on account of your God-awful temper, that I may more readily believe.”

“I was not always quite so miserable,” Francis says, tilting his chin down to regard James from beneath his brow. “In fact, I might once have been called agreeable.”

“Francis Crozier,” James says with a grin, “leader of expeditions and budding socialite.”

“Well, perhaps that is a bit of a reach.” He smiles fondly at James before turning his attention to a point just over his shoulder. “My trip with Sir James,” he begins, “to Antarctica. It was not quite so out of hand as your performance aboard the _Clio_ ”—he shoots James an amused look as he speaks that last—“yet it certainly had its moments.” There returns that familiar, faraway gleam to his eyes, one both fond and bittersweet in its distance. “We attended a ball once as Lord and Lady—Lord Crozier and his Lady Ross. Thankfully, he spared me playing the woman. I’m not ashamed to say it suited him far better than it would have me.”

A rush runs through James at that. He’s flooded with memories of that dusty mauve dress, the one he’d plucked from the depths of Sir John’s trunks. For a moment, he cannot help but picture it—himself and Francis, at a better Carnivale. One that did not end in ashes and despair. He imagines himself gathering the courage to don the damn thing, envisions the glint that might appear in Francis’s eye when first he sees it. How he might rest a hand on Francis’s arm, and play the part of his sweetheart.

It is only that he wishes to share with Francis the bond he once had with Sir James, he tells himself. It is only that he wishes he had not the need to hide the weeping of his hairline behind a helmet, and that he might have been able to indulge himself for one night.

“Yes, I believe I’ve heard tell of that,” he says after a moment, his voice a bit more breathless than perhaps is appropriate.

“And while we had no cheetahs aboard, we acquired our fair share of penguins.”

“I’m sorry, _penguins?_ ” It’s a startling veer off course from his current train of thought. James can’t quite help his incredulity, though he does not doubt Francis so much as the pictures his own imagination has begun to conjure.

“It was the men,” Francis tells him somberly. “They took quite a liking to the poor creatures, and we frequently caught them trying to smuggle the bloody things on board.” His visage cracks into a grin. “Although I will say that I did occasionally set them upon poor James, when given the opportunity.”

“You old troublemaker,” James jests once he has found his footing again. “That’s nearly worse than the time Dundy and I set a host of bats upon the locals.”

“A host of bats, eh? Unintentionally, I hope.”

“Well. Somewhat.”

He goes on to regale Francis with the entirety of the story, allowing even his own foolishness to be known. Somehow, it does not seem quite so disgraceful as usual. Though his cheeks heat with the embarrassment of recollection, James feels all the lighter for having shared it.

They continue to trade stories well into the night, neither tiring of the other’s company. James relishes these glimpses he gets into Francis’s merrier past, and, like most nights they spend thusly, he does not want it to end. He wishes he could have known Francis as he was before the world poured its misery into him; it is a shame life has tarnished him so. But sitting here, James wonders if there is hope yet. They make a good pair. Perhaps, he thinks, he can draw more of Francis’s mirth out of him, the way Francis has begun to coax goodness out of James.

\---

“And you say _Terror’s_ hold is similarly stocked?”

Francis nods, peering down at the array of small crates and boxes piled in neat stacks. “I believe Dr. Goodsir has already chosen what he will need for transportation of his medical supplies,” he says. “And the officers can supplement what they find necessary, of course. The rest we can offer to the men.”

“Good.”

In the dim light of the hold, James watches Francis lean over a small conglomeration of crates. This duty could likely have been carried out by any number of officers ranking below them, but neither of them had suggested it. They have both developed something of a penchant for keeping busy, and Francis is especially keen on making up for time lost. He is loathe, James has noticed, to spend time in idleness, unless James is the one insisting upon it. It is an understandable hang-up; James cannot fault him for wishing to distance himself from the sort of captain he had been, or for wanting to prove himself to the men. It is what he himself would do, after all.

And Francis is doing an admirable job of it—the crew has begun to warm to him. Though some still appear to regard him with some measure of misgiving, James can see the seeds of devotion sown in nearly all of them. By the time they set out, he thinks, they will surely have taken root. He is eager for it—desperate for others to perceive the excellence in Francis which he knows to be there.

When James looks at him now, he sees the sum of Francis’s parts. Not only a man whose cheer has been ground out of him, who has been shaped by prejudice and loss, but one who still harbours tenderness and love in spite of it all. He sees Francis as a man of the unluckiest sort, who, having faced the bitterest adversity, has reached deep inside himself and overcome his own weaknesses. Life has left him rough around the edges, at times dour and disagreeable, and he did succumb to wretchedness and vice. But he has come back from the brink in a way not many have, and what’s more, he has not let it sour him.

James wants _that_ to be this man’s legacy, not his drunkenness and acerbity. He does not want Francis to die out here, and for Miss Cracroft and Lady Jane and the Admiralty to remember him as a curmudgeonly old Irishman. James yearns for the world to regard Francis as he sees him now, radiant and complex. Lovely. Kind. Enthralling. _Good_. He wants it as dearly as he once burned for his own renown.

The realization creeps slowly over him, the way one does not notice the falling of night until the sun has, at last, dipped its head below the horizon. He feels it like a fever over his skin, like a turning of the stomach.

 _Oh,_ he thinks quite dumbly.

 _Oh, James._ _You damnable fool_.

“All right, James?”

He blinks. Francis is peering over at him, brow pulled together in concern.

James realizes he’s been staring, and hastily drops his eyes. He feels the tips of his ears begin to redden. “Ah— Yes, fine, thank you.” He feels his epiphany is writ plainly on his features, and fears that Francis will take one look at him and know. James turns his face away, in hopes he might delay Francis’s discernment. “Do you think these will be sufficient, then?”

Francis does not respond immediately, and James cannot help but think he’s been found out. His heart is beating furiously in his chest, and his cheeks have begun to flush. But Francis only watches him for another moment, and then turns his attention back to the crates.

“I believe so. If we manage to scrounge up any more, they certainly won’t go to waste. But I think we can turn our attention to other preparations, and count these ready.”

“Good. That’s good,” James says without much feeling, still reeling from the force of his realization. _How long?_ he wonders. How long has he been prey to this desire, heedless and unknowing? “In that case, I suppose I shall retreat to the wardroom. I believe Dundy has several, er, matters he wishes to discuss. Thank you, Francis, for your help.”

James musters a smile. Without further ado, he hurries over to the ladder and escapes, leaving a bewildered Francis alone with the boxes.

\---

Try as he might, once he has recognized his feelings toward Francis for what they are, James cannot put them out of his mind. He agonizes over them for hours, spends each spare moment considering how long he has utterly misunderstood the depths of his affections. James has had his share of fancies before, for men and women alike, but he has tended to identify them with little trouble—never have they gone so long unfettered and overlooked. It is self-delusion to a scale of which he has never before been capable, and it leaves him feeling lost.

James looks back on his hostility toward Francis, the extent of his need for Francis’s attention, and sees it all in a different light. He always knew how deeply he desired Francis’s nearness, his approval, but he had never truly considered a reason. Francis had simply been another officer he sought to impress, one with decades of experience who might regard James highly or take him under his wing, as had Sir John. Now, his craving seems so obvious; he wonders how he could have possibly missed it. James has always been skilled at crafting himself into something he is not, but that is merely show; he has never believed one of his own performances. 

Well, he tells himself, it is not so bad. He has the gift of Francis’s friendship now, and that is more than he could have hoped for. That is sufficient, and then some. He is merely grateful to have ended their years of animosity, to have come into an agreement of the most genial sort. If he can say nothing else for this blasted expedition, he will always have that onto which he might hold.

Still, he cannot help but wish it were different. That he might approach Francis with this, without fear. That Francis might accept him, and that they could try to fill this empty place with love. But that is not the way of things, even here, where rules and regulations have been loosened from their tightly-bound coil. James knows this, and reminds himself to be grateful for what he has.

The thought he gives Francis and his feelings toward him have also made James more self-aware. He comes to realize that he has thus far been doing a bang-up job of giving himself away, even prior to his epiphany. He catches himself watching Francis far too often, smiling at him for far too long, chuckling far too much at his infrequent jests. James gravitates toward him, standing slightly too close with no real excuse, brushing their shoulders together just to feel the man’s solidity. But he has also come to notice that sometimes, Francis does these things too. Having no real basis for comparison, James does not know if such actions are out of character for him—after all, he is always quite companionable and warm with those he considers friends. He grants young Jopson the same sorts of smiles, claps Thomas Blanky just as amiably about the shoulder. It is likely wishful thinking that causes James to perceive these things, and he endeavours not to read meaning where there is none.

He also endeavours to temper himself—not to wax poetic about Francis in front of others, or follow the man too far with his gaze. But it seems his efforts are for naught, for one evening just after supper, when James has finished recounting some tale or other in which Francis played his usual rather large part, Dundy leans back in his chair and says with a grin: “You fancy him, don’t you?”

James’s mouth drops open for a moment, and he feels himself beginning to redden. “I—most certainly do not!” he protests weakly.

Dundy chuckles. “You do! Oh, don’t go trying to make excuses—you won’t blouser me; I know you far too well for that. I suppose it makes your fawning over him a bit more understandable. Ever since Carnivale, it’s been _Francis this_ and _Captain Crozier that_.”

“I say, Dundy!” James shoots a panicked look at the wardroom door, leaning into the table slightly to hiss at Le Vesconte over their cleaned china plates. “Keep your voice down, you incorrigible gossip!”

“I honestly don’t know what you see in the man, James,” he goes on, though he does lower his voice somewhat. “You give him far more credit than he is due.”

James groans, rubbing at his temples with his fingertips. Usually, Dundy would be the first to know about a new love interest, a new conquest. But Francis is so far from James’s typical taste that he had hoped to spare himself the ridicule. Besides, he is all too aware that while his own opinion of Francis has been altered completely, Dundy does not share his perspective. It is a point of frequent contention among them, but James does not feel up to engaging in such sparring now. “Please,” he begs. “Leave it alone, will you? I’ve not the constitution for this tonight. Or any night, for that matter.”

Le Vesconte studies him for a moment; it is a quiet observation so much like Francis’s that James balks, looking away to scrutinize the artwork upon the wardroom walls.

“My God, James,” he says finally. “You’re really ranked fore and aft, aren’t you?”

He is afraid his silence speaks the truth for him; Le Vesconte shakes his head.

“God damn. What are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing,” James tells him, examining the plumage of one of the painted birds. He does not need to look at Dundy to know that pity slicks his face like oil. “Absolutely nothing at all.”


	3. Chapter 3

Time passes quickly; what had once seemed an endless expanse of days shortens into one single night. One night, and then they will depart on what will undoubtedly be the most difficult journey any of them has ever undertaken.

James sits at his writing desk as he ruminates, pen poised over his journal. He fears what words he has managed to scribble down regarding the matter will read as incredibly idiotic, for he can’t seem to grasp any thread of _meaning_. His thoughts are a jumbled mess of anticipation; he can’t help but feel ill at ease, and though he has become a touch more lax with regards to how honest he is willing to be in his writings, he cannot bring himself to bare the whole of his thin, frightened soul to this unforgiving page, especially while there still remains some chance of another putting eyes to it. Neither, though, can he bring himself to pen falsehoods—to prattle on about the surety of their success, or concoct some private conversation in which he instills faith into men who have lost their hope. Admittedly, they are both ideas that come to him, and ones which once he would have taken no issue recording. But the thought of doing so is distasteful to him now, and so he sits idly, scratching down a phrase or two at a time, utterly at a loss for words.

In the bottom corner of his current page, James has sketched a small sledge, complete with tiny men harnessed and hauling. It was a somewhat unconscious action, and when he moves his hand away and registers what it is he scribbles, he sets his pen carefully down upon his desk and rests his head in his hands.

He aches, his eye and brain especially, and craves another’s company. In spite of how he guards the truth of his past—of his self—James is not a solitary creature. He relies on idle chatter. On the presence of a body beside him and the attention only another person can grant him. And tonight, he desperately needs to be humoured—to be built up, or reassured—for he feels horribly small and uncertain, though he would not admit it.

For a moment, he considers going to Dundy. But then, even Dundy is not privy to his deepest of truths. He has comforted James in times of need before, but never in a moment of weakness such as this. Though Dundy is his closest friend, James has never ceased to put on airs with him. And he does not feel quite up to it, at the moment.

No—the truth of it is, he aches for Francis. To merely be in his presence; for as much as Francis once vexed James, he now soothes him. James feels safe when he is with him, in a way he cannot entirely put to words. He is not himself with Francis, not entirely—that is still one step too far. But he is closer. Truer. His layers of pomp feel outrageous and ill-fitting there, in Francis’s company, and thus James has begun to divest himself of them. Or, at the very least, he has begun to wear them more modestly. He cannot bear to part with them entirely, for their weight has become a comfort to him, and he does not know who he might be if not the persona which he has crafted. But in any case, he has grown less terrified at the prospect of showing Francis his shortcomings. He feels secure in revealing his uncertainties and permitting Francis to ease them.

But that is not the sole reason James desires his company tonight. Francis has become an itch he cannot seem to scratch; he occupies James’s thoughts constantly. Any time they spend apart is filled by recollections of him—moments which could have unfurled into something more, visions of how they might come together in the future. James imagines how he might slip a hand behind Francis’s neck and bend down to kiss him. How Francis might run his fingers through James’s hair, or press his forehead against James’s shoulder.

They are fanciful pictures, all of them, and beyond unlikely, but James’s realization in the hold has unshackled something inside him. His desire is become a hungry, ungainly thing—one he knows will never be fully satisfied. And yet that is quite all right; James is willing to suffer the ache of it, for he remains content with Francis as he is. If he can have no more than the man’s friendship, well, that is more than enough.

James makes his decision. He stands, flipping his journal closed, and attempts to concoct a pretense for his visit to _Terror_. He knows Francis will not turn him away, but he is not quite so confident as to turn up at the man’s berth unannounced, seeking naught but solace. Perhaps he will claim he is merely making one last check, before readying himself for sleep. Ensuring that Francis does not require any further aid aboard _Terror_ to prepare for their imminent departure. Surely, that would not be too unbelievable.

James lifts his journal from his writing desk and slips out of his berth; he is careful not to make too much sound, for he intends to get into his slops and make way for _Terror_ unnoticed. Fate, though, has other plans. Just as he begins to make his way down the hall, John Bridgens catches sight of him. James’s heart skips, though he knows it is irrational—he is doing nothing illicit, and as captain of this ship, there is no one to whom he must answer. Still, he cannot help but feel like a schoolboy caught sneaking out of his dormitory.

“Captain Fitzjames,” Bridgens says, sliding Dundy’s door shut behind him. “Are you ready to dress for bed?”

James shakes his head before Bridgens has even finished speaking. “No, thank you, Mr. Bridgens. I’m, er, headed for _Terror,_ actually. Few twelfth-hour preparations for our march tomorrow.”

A look of mild alarm forms upon Bridgens’ face, but he does not protest. “Oh! If you’ll grant me a moment, sir, I’ll be most happy to help you into your slops.”

“Please don’t trouble yourself,” James says, his tone a bit more strained than it ought to be. “You’re released from duties for the night; I can manage by myself. Take the rest of the time for yourself, or for whatever preparations of your own feel you must make. I insist.”

A moment of hesitation depends between them, but at length, Bridgens nods shortly. “Very well. Thank you, sir. If you do require me upon your return, please do not hesitate to call.”

James grants him a small smile, and Bridgens nods once more before departing.

When he has gone, James huffs out a breath of relief. He dresses in his slops—the process is somewhat more stilted than it would be with Bridgens’ help, but he manages all right—and ventures out into the night.

It’s cold; spring has not brought an end to the air’s eternal chill, nor will summer. It is ever frigid, only less perilously so—the winter has lost its claws, but its bite still remains. There was a time when the mere thought of a hot summer sun would send a thrill of warmth and longing through him. Now, though, such a sensation is difficult to recall; he yearns for it still, but those memories feel quite distant. Indistinct, and challenging to conjure, like some daguerreotype blistered and warped by water. Some part of James even wonders how well he will adjust to warmth, now that he has grown used to harboring this constant chill. He is meant to be a creature of heat, forged for Brazil’s temperate climes, but will he be able to stomach even London’s moderate summers when he returns? Or will he balk at the first sign of snow, chasing sunlight wherever it may settle?

The larger and more pressing query, he supposes, is whether they will return at all.

He tries to put his doubts out of his mind, but the walk to _Terror_ is long and lonely, and the Arctic dark is not conducive to positivity. By the time he reaches the ship, he is quite full of melancholy. 

Before he enters, James spares a moment to turn and look over his shoulder, at _Erebus._ She stands tall, overcome by a gilding of frost in the way long-forgotten ruins are swallowed up once more by nature, encroached upon by weeds and vines and verdant growth. The ship has become a fixture here. Part of the landscape itself. The image stirs something inside him, some pang of emotion James cannot name, and he stands there, motionless in the dark, for some time. He wonders how long _Erebus_ will endure as part of this desolation before she is truly overwhelmed. Whether any will remain here to witness it.

Such thoughts bring him back to his pulsing need for Francis, and the moment breaks as abruptly as it had formed. James tears his gaze away from the ship and turns once again toward _Terror_ , making his way up the ice ramp and over the deck. Once he descends inside, he heads quickly for the Great Cabin, and only needs knock once before a voice bids him enter.

Francis is seated at the table, though no papers or ledgers lie before him. It appears he is as much a captive of his own mind as James is, and the prospect at once leeches a considerable measure of his embarrassment from him.

Francis rises quickly to his feet. In his haste, the motion is far from graceful. “Ah, James,” he says, voice warm with surprise. “I had not expected you.”

James shifts his weight, clasping his hands in front of him. “Ah, yes, well. I, er…figured I might check in, as it were. Ensure you didn’t require any further aid, before…” he trails off, swallowing uncertainly, but Francis does not grant him the chance to flounder.

“Of course,” he says. James has little doubt Francis sees his pretense for what it is, but he accepts the lame excuse without commentary. As he speaks, he extends an arm to gesture toward the table. “Please, have a seat. Can I get you anything? I’m certain Jopson is not far.”

“No, no, I’m quite alright, thank you.” He sits, and Francis joins him.

The startled warmth of their greeting cools into something more reserved. In its taciturnity, James feels some of his earlier dread sinking back into his flesh. The cabin is stale with somberness, and in the pockets between the ship’s relative silence, James can hear the distant noises of men moving about, the low murmur of voices. Their anticipation is nearly palpable—or perhaps it is James’s own apprehension, which he projects upon them.

Francis appears to feel the night’s weight as well, for he makes no attempt to engage in idle conversation. Nor does he attempt to indulge James’s smokescreen of ship’s business. Instead, he merely sits with James, the two of them partners in their grief and dread.

It is all James could have asked for. To have someone with whom he might share this, someone willing to help him bear this load. Though Francis’s presence does not assuage his own uncertainties, knowing that they are echoed in one so experienced and capable does a great deal to lessen James’s shame. But as the stillness stretches on, he grows weary of wallowing silently in such sentiments, and feels a burgeoning need to break the thick, inflexible silence.

“This is it, isn’t it?” James asks, when he can suppress the urge no longer. “No matter what happens, there is no going back.”

Francis’s mouth twists, but he does not deny it. Instead, he says, “The end of an age.” His lips curl into a mirthless smile. “Longer, perhaps.”

“Do you remember how it was in the beginning?” James bends forward in his chair, torso hunching so that he might rest his elbows upon his thighs and lace his fingers together in the space between. He shakes his head, overwhelmed with the memory of it all. The zeal. The glory. One hundred and thirty-three men had set sail from Greenhithe with hubris dripping from them like perfume. “We were so full of hope. Stuffed with it, like a Christmas goose.” James huffs out a breath through his nose. “I truly thought we would find it.” It feels like a confession, rubbed raw from the place inside him that still hopes for renown—that still dreams they might emerge from this more or less unscathed. It is a small spot now, a tiny hollow beside his heart that seems to shrink with each passing day. Perhaps it will calcify, in time.

Francis says nothing, so James once again spills himself into the quiet. “What fools we were.”

Francis grunts at that; James meets his gaze and finds his lips twisted into the ghost of a smile. “ _More geese than swans now live_ ,” he quotes, and James finds his own lips quirking in response.

“ _More fools than wise,_ ” he finishes. “How apt.”

Silence descends again. 

Their conversation, James thinks, is too weighty to continue on unbroken—they cannot heft it without pausing to rest.

“We are almost through it, James,” Francis says. “We’ll suffer one long, arduous summer, and then we will never have to set foot upon the ice again.”

He feels himself nod, trying to let Francis’s words sink into his skin, to receive the truth of them like a sacrament. _One summer_ , he repeats silently to himself. _And then we will be finished with it._

“But let us linger on happier thoughts, tonight.” Francis leans forward in his chair, as though the intensity of his focus, of his speech, draws him like a magnet toward James. “There will be ample time for melancholy later.”

James nods again. He is still quite unable to conjure speech, afraid that any utterance of sound will betray the depth of his emotion. He is overwhelmed by a maddening combination of sentiments—fear and fondness, nostalgia and despondency, and a slew of others he cannot manage to identify. They stick in his throat like a stone, and his chest feels too tight to encompass their entirety. And not least among them, there is, too, the staggering weight of his love for Francis; James marvels still at how grand it has grown, at how long it had gone unnoticed. Here, on this precipice, with the fullness of Francis’s attention enshrouding him, with Francis’s kindness flooding the cabin with light and warmth James had thought beyond them, he feels nearly breathless with want. He thinks of the years he’d spent resenting the man, thinking him cold and self-absorbed, and laments how much time he has lost. Here they stand, on the tail end of three hard, horrible years—all that time, and it is only in the last several months that James has been able to see Francis for who he truly is.

James can’t help but mourn the time they wasted as needless enemies. If he had not been so full up with pride, if Francis had seen promise in something other than drink, if Sir John had tempered his hubris by the smallest degree…

Well. It is far too late for that.

All that remains is the future, though even that is uncertain, hidden by the impenetrable fog of possibility. James supposes the image will come into better clarity once they set out—they may even find themselves pleasantly surprised. It is quite possible that they will overcome the odds piled against them.

And yet…

His eyes snag on the knot of Francis’s cravat, the contrast of Francis's skin against his white collar. _This may be the last night left to us,_ he thinks with no small measure of panic. There is no way to discern what tomorrow may bring; for all he knows, these may be the last moments they have together. The last moments they have at all. The thought seizes in his chest; he cannot bear to think it. His own days are numbered, he knows; the truth of it can be found in the haziness of his mind, the red speckling his hairline, the copper tang which floods his mouth. But what is there to say Francis will not meet his end first? That the Creature will not bound forth from whence it lurks to wrap its maw around him, leaving naught but a leg, an arm, a glove.

James struggles to keep his breathing even; did Francis not just utter the need for levity tonight, of all nights? But he cannot stop picturing Francis’s blood on the snow the way Sir John’s had been, and the images tip over themselves until they become an indistinguishable conglomerate of horrors.

As though summoned by the weight of his worrying, there comes a mess of black fur—it presses against James’s boots and settles itself there, curling up beneath him as though it might suck the worry from his very marrow.

Childish though it may be, James feels the knot of his heart loosen. His face breaks into a small smile, both relief and slow-forming humour making themselves known in the parting of his lips. He huffs out a dry laugh and reaches down, tangling his fingers in Neptune’s fur. “Ah, Neptune, you incredible creature. Never too far from your master’s side, are you?” he coos, rubbing at the beast’s head and back. The dog’s tongue hangs out of his mouth in bliss, hot drool gathering in the fur around his jaws. “That’s a good lad.”

Shaking his hair out of his face, James looks up.

And pauses.

Francis is watching him already, looking down upon the two of them with such tenderness that it takes James’s breath away. Dumbly, he urges himself back into motion and again takes up stroking his hand through Neptune’s fur, though he cannot tear his eyes from Francis. His lips curl into a tentative smile, his earlier burst of joviality giving way to something gentler and truer, and Francis smiles back, equally fond.

“He has a knack for knowing just where he’s needed,” Francis says, casting his gaze briefly to Neptune, who has curled languidly around James’s feet. “Don’t you, Neptune?” When he looks back to James, it’s with a cocked eyebrow, an air of amusement. He melts again, eyes sparkling. “Ah, he’s a good dog, no matter how I may gripe.”

“I could say the same for his master,” James teases. He’s not sure what possessed him to speak so frankly, but Francis’s surprise gives way to one of his honest grins. And James can’t be certain, but he thinks he catches a fledgling blush rouging the man’s cheeks.

Neither seems to want to be the first to look away; the moment stretches between them, spiraling outside the constraints of time. There is only Francis—the blueness of his eyes, the heat of his gaze. James cannot remember the last time he was truly warm, but he thinks this may be the closest he has come out here in this tundra.

 _I’m glad you’re with me, Francis,_ he thinks, and then: _I don’t know if I could do this alone._

He does not speak it, but some part of him thinks Francis hears him all the same, for he leans forward, energy directing itself toward James, and lays a hand upon his shoulder. It is warm and strong, and when he squeezes, James feels the pressure resound through every inch of him. 

He raises his own hand and covers Francis’s with it, holding his gaze. James wants to lean into the contact, to press his cheek against their overlaid fingers and close his eyes so that he may etch every nuance of this moment into his memory, but he has not entirely abandoned restraint. He refrains, taking only that which is granted him, and finds solace in prudence.

When Francis withdraws his hand and sits back in his chair, James feels the loss keenly.

It is somewhat silly of him, truth be told, and yet he cannot help the jolt of disappointment he feels. Francis rests his arm upon the table, and James is taken with the urge to grasp it. To wind their fingers together like lovers. He thinks how easy it would be to stretch his own arm out, to brush his fingertips against the back of Francis’s hand.

He does not.

They continue to trade idle chatter for some time, conversation rising and falling like the tide, neither of them willing to puncture this small bubble of security. In a way, it has become a place apart from reality, or at least a place the perilousness of reality cannot affect. Each story, each jest, weaves itself among the threads of their earlier speech, forming a soft armor that shields them from the promise of what is to come.

James recounts happier moments from the duration of the voyage, mostly from before they had found themselves ensnared by ice; Francis joins in kind, though he seems to speak in more general terms, adorning James’s offerings rather than crafting his own. But James doesn’t mind; it makes him feel as though he is leading a charge, with Francis following willingly and wholly behind him. It is only storytelling—James knows he has some proclivities for it, and it is hardly akin to leading men, commanding a ship, managing an expedition—but the simplest thing can sometimes be the most profound.

“Do you recall our first Christmas?” James asks at one point, leaning back in his chair and crossing his legs with a raconteur’s finesse.

“At Beechey Island.” The corner of Francis’s mouth tugs upward. “If I remember correctly, Mr. Wall concocted that God-awful imitation of—”

“Smoking bishop,” James cuts in, speaking atop Francis with a grin. “You’re quite fortunate to have not sampled it; the taste was horrid—whatever fruit he incorporated served only to make the thing taste sickly, the way flowers meant to mask the scent of decay grant it instead a sort of rancid perfume. Christ.” He wrinkles his nose in distaste. “I can still taste it. Should’ve tossed the lot of it, but we drank every last drop. A terrible mistake, as we’d come to discover. An hour or so later, and I’d been quite certain Mr. Wall had dosed us all with arsenic.”

“It took Lieutenant Irving nearly a full day to recover.” Francis’s eyes shine with mirth. “And he was barely in his cups.”

“Was it not he who initiated the hymn singing?”

Francis barks out a laugh. “I’d forgotten about that. Never been more grateful for a Christmas pudding in all my years of service.”

“Lady Jane’s own recipe,” James adds wistfully. “Sweet, and crumbly, and decadently moist… At any rate, it certainly shut us up, didn’t it? Good old Dundy devoured it so rapidly I found myself afraid he should choke.”

They go on, cutting the choicest moments out of the past several years and stitching them into a tapestry of nostalgia. And when they finally wear out the fabric of stories from the expedition, they recede into older territory. James tells Francis of a time he leapt into frigid water after one of his crewmates had fallen overboard, the endeavour not quite so simple as he generally preferred to impress, and Francis relates his own daring, regaling James with tales of leaping from berg to berg, crossing new-formed crevasses with hardly a moment’s hesitation.

At some point, Neptune registers the change in James’s mood and abandons him, padding over to take up his rightful place beside Francis. The picture they make ingrains itself in James’s mind, searing itself into the space just behind his eyes so vividly he knows it will linger even when he closes them. It is quite the composition—Francis the picture of manhood, lounging confidently back in his chair, having loosened his cravat over the course of the night so that the knot hangs somewhat freely around his neck, and Neptune the outward symbol of his gentleness, his heart.

The low lamplight casts the tableau entire in warm tones, softening Francis’s edges and gleaming yellow and orange in Neptune’s fur. There is some undercurrent of tension in them still, but that only adds flavor to the scene, tempering their apparent ease so that it does not crumble into sloth.

It is beautiful. 

James cannot help but desire to capture it.

His journal calls to him from where he has placed it on the table. For a moment, he considers not succumbing to this need. Perhaps he can wait until Francis retires and sketch the scene from memory, or even cling to this moment until some chilly night on the ice, so that he may use it to sweeten their bitter routine.

But he is afraid to lose some nuance in this; the thought of capturing ill the twist of Francis’s lips, or the fall of his shirtsleeves around his wrists, sends a thrill of distaste through him. No, he must do this now. Francis will not judge him. Besides, it is not as though other men do not possess comparable or even superior artistic abilities—Drs. Stanley and McDonald, Mr. Goodsir, Lieutenant Irving, even Lieutenant Gore had demonstrated proclivities for sketching and painting, some of them far beyond any skill James might claim. And however he might hope for a sliver of time in the future which he might fill with leisure, it remains as uncertain and unlikely as anything else.

James sits up straighter in his chair and draws his journal slowly toward him.

“I don’t suppose you could spare a pen?” he inquires, regaling Francis with a falsely confident smile.

As expected, the man does not hesitate. He grants James a questioning quirk of the brow but complies all the same, returning to the table with both pen and inkwell and setting them before James. He re-seats himself just as James begins to flip through to an open page.

Francis’s eyes catch on the quick flashes of ink—doodles scrawled into the margins of his notes, full-page renderings of _Terror_ and _Erebus,_ and even some of the crew. But he does not comment, and James does not offer any explanation.

When he reaches a fresh page, he looks up, squinting at Francis and Neptune for a moment before beginning to sketch. His lines are sure, though there forms some nervousness in the confines of his chest. Francis’s scrutiny is unwavering, and, as ever, James could not desire more to prove worthy of his praise. That anticipation does not cease, ever beating its wings about James’s ribcage like a trapped bird, but he relaxes into the familiarity of the motions and falls into a sort of rhythm—a glance to Francis and Neptune, to the page, the dip of the pen in the inkwell, the scratch of it across paper. He feels his heart begin to steady, every sense consumed by the desire to render perfectly on the page such a sublime composition.

“Are you sketching me?” Francis asks when James has come near to completing a rough representation of his upper half. He can hear the smile in it, which grants him the courage to quirk his own lips in response and meet Francis’s questioning gaze.

“Perhaps.”

The moment which passes thereafter is charged as air amid a storm—James feels it buzzing around them. Francis is staring at him, his expression affectionate but somewhat unreadable. Its intensity spreads warm and slow through James’s abdomen. He wets his lips, the tip of his tongue flicking out to drag along their seam, and Francis’s eyes drop to track the motion. They spend a moment there before (somewhat guiltily, James believes) shooting down to James’s journal.

“I wasn’t aware you possessed such talent for this.” Francis’s voice emerges rough and unsteady, as though dragging its dead weight along various bumps and depressions.

James feels his heartbeat quicken. “Yes, it’s something I picked up when I was a lad,” he says, reaching for nonchalance and falling somewhat short of the mark. “It passes the time well, though I daresay I haven’t Mr. Goodsir’s precision or the late Lieutenant Gore’s talent for oils.”

“Your rendering is skilled as any I have ever seen,” Francis offers, and James’s face grows hot.

“It’s hardly finished,” he says weakly. He feels Francis’s praise heating every inch of him. “This is only a first pass, of sorts.”

“Well, then, it is an upstanding beginning.”

Though he does not respond, James permits himself to bask in Francis’s approval. It hangs hot in the room, flavoring the silence with spices he has long since forgotten. 

Francis seems content to allow the quiet to grow once more, and the room fills with the scratch of nib against paper as James brings this moment one step closer to eternity.

By the time he has finished, the lamps are burning low, and many of the ship’s murmurings have ceased. It is an altogether unacceptable time to be awake, especially for no reason other than leisure. His eye has taken up its stinging again, making itself known with a sharp bite. He presses the meat of his palm against it. “Damnation,” he mutters, trying to blink the sensation away.

Francis opens his mouth, but James waves him off. “It’s all right,” he says, as the pain jabs at the inside of his skull. “Concentration has taxed my eyesight, is all. Here, I do believe I’ve finished.”

He drops the pen back in its well and slides the journal over to Francis, trying not to betray the depth of his anxiety. It is a good rendering, as skilled as he has ever produced, and though there is no color to paint a mood, he thinks there is an excess of emotion in those hard, short lines. Allowing Francis to look upon it feels a bit like tearing open his chest and asking the man to witness his very being.

“This is extraordinary, James.” Francis’s voice is thick, his eyes bright. James can recognize the tangle of emotions in the man’s throat, for it is the same which knots itself in his stomach. “Truly.”

Pride is a crescendo within him. James smiles and allows it to roll through him, heady and warm. “You think so?” he asks, not so much self-deprecating as fishing for further praise. Still, even now, the pounding behind his eye is beginning to demand attention.

“I do.”

“Well. I do believe that’s the highest praise you’ve ever granted me.”

Francis cocks a wry eyebrow. “Don’t go letting it get to your head, now.”

“I say, I would never!”

“I suppose,” Francis continues, glancing back down at the sketch, “if anything, at least we know you hold some promise as a portrait artist, should we survive this. I, at least, would pay for your talents.”

 _Should we survive this_. There is nothing wrong with the remark—it is only following the thread of kindness which Francis has spun this evening—and yet those four little words hook themselves like burrs into the soft meat of James’s mind. He feels some of the levity seep from the room, as heat departs upon the opening of a door, and his smile dims.

Francis takes note of this and responds in kind, though there is yet some joviality in his eyes.

In this moment’s respite from their banter, James feels the pain in his eye and head return with a vengeance. He squints against it, letting out a soft sound of discomfort.

He should return to _Erebus_ —it is very late, and his body has need of no unnecessary strain when already it touches upon its very limits. Even were that not the case, they will both of them require as much strength as they can gather for what comes tomorrow. It would be best to seek what sleep he can, though James doubts he will have an easy time of it. Still, he ought not to consign Francis to such insomnia simply because he himself suffers it. James readies himself to make his excuses, but for a moment, he cannot seem to speak—an irrational burst of panic ignites in him. He does not want to leave Francis behind. To venture alone into the cold once more, his only company the dark thoughts which had bid him seek solace here in the first place. 

But he has troubled Francis enough, tonight, and it is time to bolster his courage.

“I’m afraid I must take my leave,” he says, the words bitter and limp inside his mouth, and starts to stand.

Francis’s hand twitches upon James’s journal, and for a moment, James thinks he glimpses the same panic which built its nest in him but a moment prior. He stands too, clumsily kicking his chair back and nearly toppling it backwards in his haste, palms dragging across the table’s face.

“Stay,” Francis blurts, and immediately looks stricken.

James freezes. He is quite unable to reconcile the word with its meaning, and for a moment, simply stares dumbfounded at Francis, who has tucked his hands behind his back and begun to flush.

“It is not—not fair of me to ask, I know, and yet...stay here with me tonight, James. Aboard _Terror_.”

“I—” All capacity for higher thought has fled him, leaving behind a dumb mass of shock and, shortly thereafter, relief. “Where would I retire?” The question flies out of him before he can restrain it, though he knows already that he would agree even if Francis bade him sleep alongside Neptune at his feet. 

After all, it will not be so very different from the conditions they will soon face.

“Well,” Francis begins, chewing the word slowly. His face is still bright red, and he looks at James only in brief glances, quickly returning his focus to a point just over James’s shoulder. “There is ample space in my own berth, if you are not opposed.” He holds himself ramrod straight, though the pose seems most awkward upon him now. “I might also lend you use of it, and take the floor for myself.”

“For God’s sake, Francis, I’ll not chase you out of your own bed.” James is beginning to flush now too, though it is not so much _embarrassment_ that colors his cheeks. He imagines them lying back-to-front atop Francis’s mattress, James with his nose in Francis’s hair or Francis cradling James’s body with his own. How they might shift throughout the night so that they are entwined so wholly he would not be certain where his body ended and Francis’s began. The thought further warms him, and he clears his throat, tugging at his shirt collar. “It’s not so unusual, is it? Plenty of men seek such comforts in one another, particularly on a night as frigid and somber as this.”

“They do,” Francis agrees quickly. He permits himself to look at James now, as though James’s tentative acceptance has temporarily curtailed his embarrassment.

James may abscond behind mostly valid explanations, but his true desires are much more self-centered. He would very much like to lie beside Francis—to hear his breathing even in sleep, watch the rise and fall of his breast, feel the press of him against his back or chest. These things are different, for men like him. And though he is perfectly capable of sharing a bedroll with a companion and finding no more than platonic comfort in it, he knows that with Francis it will not be so. Furthermore, beyond his obfusticated agenda, the fact that he considers relations with men at all would likely be affront enough to beg off becoming bed partners. But James is a selfish creature, and mentions none of this to Francis.

“All right.” His heart turns over in his chest like a beached fish, and Francis smiles slow and honest. “By God, why not? I’ll stay, Francis; of course I will.” The relief of saying it is immense; he feels as though some kind, invisible force has punctured his bloated lining and let out the excess air, so that he is left giddy and unrestrained. James basks for a moment, relishing the knowledge that he will neither need to step foot into the Arctic air tonight nor face the prospect of a chilled, empty bed. That this moment of grace may extend, at least until morning.

A moment passes. They do not move, standing awkwardly instead, staring at each other as though seeking how best to proceed. James supposes it is not so often that such an arrangement comes about in this way; they are, after all, aboard a ship, not left alone in some drafty tent, and his own berth lies but a mile or so away. The lack of acuity in this situation lends it a certain maladroitness—one which neither of them seems desirous to acknowledge.

James, for his part, feels he stands on precarious ground. He attempts to reassure himself—Francis has not exactly propositioned him; he has only offered a place in his bed. 

Which is, really, nearly as bad. It is just as intimate as a sexual advance, if not more so, and James finds himself as nervous as he was when first he took a lover. But he trusts Francis. He wants this. And he will not shy away from it like some blushing virgin.

Slowly, they begin their preparations for sleep. Francis closes James’s journal and turns out the majority of the lamps, rinsing his hands and face in the water basin and readying his berth. James thinks it odd at first that he does not call Jopson—surely, the lad would balk at the captain performing such duties himself. But then again, tonight is a time apart from duty, in many ways. He remembers the subtle relief lacquering Bridgens’ expression when he released him from his duties and thinks perhaps Jopson, too, has been granted a temporary reprieve.

“I’ll see about a spare nightshirt,” Francis says, making his way toward the Great Cabin’s door. 

James nods his thanks, and, once Francis has left, strips off his waistcoat and cravat. He takes his own turn at the basin, splashing cold water across his face and wondering what fate, exactly, he has just consigned himself to.

Not long after, Francis returns. He bears a neatly folded nightshirt and a pillow in his arms, his manner somewhat uncertain. His eyes linger on the skin of James’s neck, which, James realizes with a jolt of self-consciousness, has been exposed by his newly-parted collar.

He flushes, taking the offering, and their fingers brush as he does so—a dry drag of skin against skin. “Thank you,” he murmurs, and Francis nods, stepping back toward the berth.

He slides the door shut behind him, likely to change into his own nightclothes, and James blows out a long, low breath. If they are already so bothered, he is loathe to think with what tension they might pass the night. Francis’s proximity has only increased its effect upon him in recent days, and he knows that being within inches of the man will be the most difficult test of restraint he has yet endured.

The sound of wood on wood rouses him, and he looks up to see Francis, clad in his linens and nightshirt, stepping out and gesturing for James to take his place.

James does not move at first, blinking dumbly against the swell of fondness which crests within him at the sight; it is so gentle, so domestic a scene, and so at odds with how he normally sees Francis. There are no greatcoats or cravats or epaulets behind which he may hide—they are bared to each other now, in the simplest of ways. Francis seems softer, more tender. Still a formidable presence, but not quite so intimidating. James imagines being graced with the sight every morning, every night. Envisions how it might feel to know this side of Francis, to be blessed with his vulnerability as well as his strength.

After a moment’s pause—of which he dearly hopes Francis does not take note—James drops his gaze and walks past him, sealing himself inside the berth with a last, encouraging grin. Once he has done so, he begins to undress, slowly and methodically divesting himself of the vestiges of his uniform and folding them neatly out of the way. He tries not to consider that he is currently occupying Francis’s most private of spaces. How less than a minute ago, Francis had been undressing the same as he, perhaps right here where James now stands.

He shrugs into the nightshirt and smooths his hands through his hair, trying to piece himself into some semblance of order. This is nothing, he tells himself. Less than nothing. There is no need to be so jittery.

Feeling rather naked, James pulls open the door to the berth. He tries to tamp down the heat in his cheeks and fails spectacularly.

At the sound, Francis, who has had his back to the berth, turns around. He pointedly does not look anywhere but James’s face—James can feel the intensity of the man’s concentration, pointed and desperate. His own heart stutters with the same sort of emotion, and he makes himself step back so that Francis may enter. He does so, and James shuts the door behind them, hovering inelegantly just inside it.

“I will take the spot closest the bulkhead,” he says, rather proud of how little his voice wavers. “I don’t mind it, and as I believe you will agree, I am clearly the more sprightly out of the two of us.” It is, perhaps, a bit underhanded; while many may find such a position undesirable, James has always liked the security—the embrace of the wood on one end, and the comfort of a warm body on the other. Confined, but never trapped. And, if Francis sidles a little close in the night, well—that is on him, for James has only so far to retreat.

“Very well,” Francis says. They stare at the berth for a moment longer, as though they may somehow overcome the task before them by merely considering it.

James is the first to move. He clears his throat, crossing over to the berth. “Right,” he says, feeling an odd reluctance to pull back Francis’s bedcoverings and slip between his sheets. _Christ, James,_ he berates himself, fingers twitching at his sides. _No need to go getting all poked up. It’s only a God damned bed._

Urging himself to motion is rather like coaxing movement out of stone. He sets the spare pillow beside Francis’s and clambers into the bunk inelegantly, peeling back the blankets and tucking his lower half beneath them. He feels like a boy again, the way he and William used to sneak into each other’s beds when they were young. Only the stakes here are inordinately higher. James twists onto his side, shimmying over far enough that his back presses against the cold bulkhead, and props himself up on one elbow. He feels terribly exposed, and out of reflex, draws cocksurety toward him like a blanket. It does not go on quite so easy as is James’s custom, but he swallows his uncertainty and cocks an eyebrow anyway, tossing Francis a falsely self-assured grin. “Well? Are you going to stand there and gawk all night, or will you join me?”

Francis’s throat bobs as he swallows. He doesn’t respond, but he does pull back his side of the blankets and slip carefully beneath them, lying gingerly upon his back. He stays so close to the edge that James thinks half his body must be hanging off the bunk, and he can feel Francis’s tension radiating through the space between them.

The proximity sets his heart fluttering like a caged bird; James does not allow it to show on his face. He affects blitheness instead, and attempts to settle into the roguish bent which he has employed so often before. “Come now, Francis, surely that can’t be comfortable. By God, you’re nearly falling off the edge. No need to cling to the edge so; I promise you I don’t bite.”

The roll of the eyes which this statement incurs is so profound it proves nearly audible. Still, Francis does sidle closer, turning onto his side so that his back is to James. “There; now for Christ’s sake, quit your yapping.”

James’s grin settles into something more genuine. They are quite near each other now, only a scant few inches separating their bodies. Each exhale blows against the nape of Francis’s neck, the back of his head; James can feel the heat of it, trapped between them. The urge to close the distance is immense—James yearns to fit his body to Francis’s, to sling an arm over his chest and poke a leg between his, to press his nose against his light, thin hair. He feels the possibility of it acutely, the ghost of Francis’s body heavy between his arms. If he were a younger man, he thinks, this alone would be enough to stir him to arousal. As it is, he is not quite so prick forward, and his desire to touch is born more out of adoration than sexual appetite.

All at once, it becomes too much. He is so near, so close to having Francis, and yet so far. The ache in his skull makes itself known once more, and James tries to block it out, to drink this moment in and send his melancholy away from him. He clears his throat, settling his head upon his pillow and drawing the blankets up over his shoulders.

“Goodnight, Francis,” he murmurs.

Several seconds pass. James closes his eyes. He feels for a moment as though the bed has begun to rock gently—like they are back on open water and headed for home.

As he is beginning to settle into its movements, sleep tugging at his mind, he hears Francis’s voice, quiet as a whisper and sweet as honey.

“Goodnight, James.”

When sleep claims him at last, it brings with it dreams of London, and of Francis at his side.

\---

James eases into consciousness the way a wave rolls gently into the shore. It takes him a moment to place himself and the body before him, but he puzzles it out languidly, memory sweeping slowly over him with feather-light wings. He doesn’t know the time, but it’s still dark, and the ship has not yet exploded into sound. Still, there is, as always, the creaking groan of the ice, and the faint footfalls of whoever is currently on watch.

As a groggy sort of wakefulness settles itself over him, James comes to realize that Francis has turned during the night. His face is scant inches away from James’s own, and the hot puffs of his breath gather warm and damp against James’s nose and mouth. Their legs, too, have shifted, tangled like lovers’ beneath the blankets, and their fingertips brush between their bodies. James’s heart surges, and a gentle warmth tingles through his extremities. It is so intimate a manner of contact that it takes his breath away; he dares not shift an inch in fear that Francis may stir or move.

He looks so beautiful like this: face gentled in sleep, body lax and muscles uncoiled. His face is smoothed, the furrow in his brow and frown lines around his mouth replaced by an expression of utter peace. Francis’s lips are parted slightly, and he breathes through his open mouth, body swelling gently with each inhalation.

Slowly, cautiously, James slides his hand closer to Francis’s. Inch by careful inch, he lays it atop Francis’s upturned palm. His heart flutters nervously, but Francis does not stir. If anything, he seems to melt further into the mattress.

James wants to linger in this moment forever, to bundle it up and take it inside of him and bury it there, just within his chest. If emotion could warm a fellow as thoroughly as flame, he thinks he would never feel the cold again. It would hold no sway over him, if only he could shelve this very instant for keeping in the annals of his mind.

Chest aching with fullness, James studies the splay of Francis’s hair across his forehead, the chapped pink of his lips. He could spend an eternity watching Francis sleep and would not tire of it. He feels exorbitantly grateful to have been granted such a privilege—if anything on this Earth remains that is truly holy, it is this. This unguarded, unwitnessed moment. In a way, he feels something of a voyeur, but then, Francis has trusted him with this, just as James has trusted Francis in return.

As though roused by the volume of James’s thought, Francis sighs heavily, and shifts his head upon his pillow.

James’s heart catches in his throat. He holds his breath, watching Francis intently. But Francis does not seem to have woken—he readjusts once more, then lapses into stillness. James holds himself motionless for another long, charged moment, and just when he begins to release himself from his panic, Francis’s fingers wrap lightly around his hand. The contact floods James’s every sense, spiraling warm and intoxicating through him. His gaze drifts down to their hands, messily curled and gently entwined, and lingers there, caught on the soft, curving lines.

“James.”

James’s gaze snaps back up to Francis’s face, but his expression is still lax, the words a sloppy mumble into his pillow. Still, they strike a chord within James, and his heart begins to pound so loudly he thinks it a wonder the ship has not yet come to attention for fear of the noise. Francis lets out a soft, low sound and burrows deeper into the mattress, body shifting even closer to James.

For his part, James can scarcely breathe. His love for Francis is too large for his body to contain, and he feels it seeping out from his pores, redolent and pervasive. He wants to press their foreheads together, to smooth Francis’s hair, to kiss the skin just under Francis’s jaw. Instead, he tightens his grip slightly on Francis’s hand.

“I’m here,” James murmurs reverently. He is unable to refrain from bending a knee so that it grazes almost imperceptibly against Francis’s. “I’m here, Francis.”

James watches Francis until his eyelids grow heavy. Sleep paws at him once again, and he knows that in a few hours, before the majority of the men have begun to stir, he will need to stave off its siren call. He will climb out of this shelter and dress himself in yesterday’s clothing. Leave _Terror_ behind and undertake the lonely, frozen walk back to _Erebus._ James will finish packing the last of his personal effects and shrug into his captaincy once more, will button his command around him like a coat. He will need to prepare himself and his men for the journey before them.

But there is time, yet.

For now, he lies beside Francis, and abides in this moment of peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The _biggest_ of thank-yous to [jouissant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jouissant) for their tireless, supremely helpful beta work, and also to [Lyrstzha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyrstzha/), whose letter was so full of good prompts that I had the hardest time whittling them down into one piece. Hopefully I've managed to do some of them at least a little justice. Happy Yuletide!


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